[News Culture] Choi Min-sik rarely enters a story as the least powerful man in the room. That is exactly what makes “The Intern” such an intriguing next move.
After decades of playing men who seize control of every situation, Choi walks into fashion startup Woo22 with no title, no authority and a boss from an entirely different generation. He plays Gi-ho, a man with 37 years of professional experience and exactly one day of seniority.
The contradiction gives the film its comic spark. Gi-ho dresses for the office as he knows it, arriving in a neatly pressed suit with old-fashioned sleeve protectors. The company around him runs on digital instincts and the loose etiquette of startup culture. His challenge is not learning how to work. It is accepting that the meaning of work has changed.
The role also opens a lighter lane for an actor whose career has been built on intensity. Choi helped reshape the Korean box office with “Shiri,” turned gangsters into pop-culture fixtures in “Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time” and “New World,” and led the country’s most-watched film, “The Admiral: Roaring Currents.”
“Happy End,” “Chihwaseon,” “Oldboy” and “Crying Fist” made him a familiar presence at Cannes long before Korean cinema reached its current global stature. More recently, “Big Bet” and “Notes from the Last Row” proved that his screen authority travels just as powerfully across serialized storytelling.
Yet “Exhuma” revealed that audiences were responding to more than the characters. Choi’s relaxed humor and generous fan interactions during promotional appearances gave rise to the affectionate nickname “Min-sik hyung,” drawing a younger generation toward an actor many had previously known only through his formidable screen persona.
Against that history, Gi-ho does not feel like a step down. He feels like a reset.
The story places him opposite Seon-woo, played by Han So-hee, a driven young founder who has turned her company into a rising force in fashion only three years after its launch. Gi-ho joins her staff as its oldest employee and newest intern, then discovers that he has been assigned to work directly under the CEO.
That reversal of age and rank becomes the film’s emotional center. Gi-ho brings patience, discipline and an instinct for people into a workplace he barely understands. Seon-woo has speed, ambition and authority, but not necessarily all the answers. Their relationship grows in the space between those strengths, moving beyond workplace comedy toward an intergenerational friendship built on mutual respect.
Han described Choi’s take on Gi-ho as “warm, gracious and even adorable,” signaling a gentler transformation from an actor more often associated with explosive force.
Director Kim Do-young offered an even more emphatic assessment.
“Choi Min-sik is a fully formed genius,” Kim said. “Watching him interpret a character and bring that interpretation to life is astonishing.”
For an actor who has spent decades defining what power looks like on screen, “The Intern” offers a different proposition: starting over without losing the life that came before.
“The Intern” opens in South Korean theaters on Sept. 16.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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